STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Sun Pharma’s Dilip Shanghvi is at the second spot while the Hinduja siblings are at number 3

Indian industrialist Mukesh Ambani has topped Forbes Magazine's list of 100 richest Indians for the ninth year in a row with earnings of $22.7 billion. Sun Pharma’s Dilip Shanghvi's $16.9 billion place him at a distant second. The Hinduja siblings, Srichand, Gopichand, Prakash, and Ashok, are at the third spot with earnings of $15.2, displacing Wipro's Azim Premiji who has slipped to number 4 with earnings of $15 billion.

The surprise entry this year is Patanjali Ayurved’s Acharya Balkrishna, a close associate of India's famous yoga guru, Ramdev, whose net worth of $2.5 billion have fetched him the 48th spot.

The youngest among the six newcomers in the list are internet entrepreneurs, brothers Bhavin and Divyank Turakhia, who sold their ad tech firm Media.net for USD 900 million to a consortium of Chinese investors. They are at the 95th spot with a net worth of $1.3 billion. Hero group scion Pawan Munjal's debuted at 29th place with earnings of 3.65 billion.

Eight persons find their way back in this year's list including Biocon’s Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw whose earnings of $1.83 billion place her on the 65th spot.

The combined net worth of India's 100 wealthiest is $381 billion, an increase of 10 per cent from 2015's $345 billion. "Handsome gains" in the stock market is the reason why a majority of the names figure in the list, Forbes Asia’s India Editor Naazneen Karmali told PTI.

The increase in the wealth of Mukesh Ambani, whose Reliance Industries recently launched the much-awaited 4G mobile services, is on account of a 21 per cent surge in share price of Reliance Industries in the past 12 months. He ranked 36th in the Forbes global rich list. His younger brother and industrialist, Anil Ambani, is at number 32 with earnings of $3.4 billion, down from 29th spot last year as per the list for India.

Forbes also said the fortunes of cement and paint tycoons in the country benefitted from the government’s infrastructure push and housing-for-all policy. Shree Cement’s Benu Gopal Bangur moved up to the 14th place with a networth of USD 5.9 billion, while Asian Paints’ Ashwin Dani saw his wealth rise to USD 3.3 billion to rank him 34th.

Among those who didn't make it this year was textile tycoon Balkrishan Goenka and the co-founders of Flipkart, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal.

The minimum amount required to make the list was $1.25 billion, up from $1.1 billion in 2015.